JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A jaw dropping scene unfolded live on a social media site on May 11.
A Jacksonville mother ducks for cover as gunfire erupts outside of her home, and a bullet flew into her bedroom as she conducted her weekly sermon on Facebook Live.
The bullet traveled through three walls straight into a nearby bathroom. Loveyd Walker’s husband and children were also home at the time.
Several weeks later, she opened up about the moments before, during and after the shooting.
"It was a regular, normal day,” Walker said. “Nothing was out of the way. I usually get up and do my makeup and my hair for the sermon. It was just regular."
The early hours that day may have felt mundane but Walker says something guided her that evening.
“It was something about that night, just go and anoint your house,” Walker explains she prayed over her home that evening before the shooting happened after 8 o’clock. “And that's why I feel I didn't get hit because if you see I'm here, the door is here and the bullet went through the door. Any bit closer and I could have been out of here. But to God be the glory! I had to check myself like oh my goodness because when you look at the video you can see like there was a splatter or something. Whatever splattered hit me, like hit my back. So when I went down it was like oh my goodness. And then the ringing in my ear and then I'm like ok but I wasn't shot thank God for that."
What moves the Jacksonville mother of three goes beyond the message preached within her church on Jacksonville's northside. Walker heads up her own online ministry using Facebook Live.
She's been streaming video sermons since September 2020, every Wednesday at 8 p.m. faithfully.
“It's time for us to start shining light in dark places and this is a dark place,” Walker said. “This is a dark place and I know that the light lives on the inside of me and I'm going to let it shine.”
Walker says she’s endured the darkness living in the Moncrief area for 20 years, “I done seen shootings out here plenty of times.”
This latest shooting police say involved two groups of people firing at each other hitting three innocent bystanders outside. All of them survived.
A bullet made its way inside Walker's home traveling through her walls, with her three children and husband nearby.
"Everybody wants their children to be safe,” Walker said. “Nobody wants to stay somewhere where you know it's not safe and that's what was going through my mind. Like God I can't even preach the gospel without shootings you know. I just want better."
She says the gloom, corruption and evil meant to halt the mission she's been on for two years and counting, serves as motivation. In the Facebook Live video Walker is seen getting up off the ground, sitting into her chair and continuing her sermon several minutes after the gunfire.
“That was crazy,” she says in the video. “Let's go! Back to the word because who is not going to stop me is the devil! You got me so messed up! Where was I? Why wouldn't they want it to be known?”
The mother of three, driven by purpose says through it all she chooses to remain steadfast in spite of her circumstance.
“I'm about to get in here and pray ya'll,” Walker said during the facebook live video after a bullet pierced her walls. “Pray my strength in the Lord and pray God gets me up out of this place. Lord Jesus. This place ain't safe.”
Several vehicles and homes in the area were hit by gunfire that night as two groups of people shot at each other. One of the three innocent bystanders was shot while driving by in their car. FCN reached out to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office following up on the shooting and no arrest have been made.
Walker says she and her husband are looking into various programs and trying their best to get out of the high crime area.